Virtual Drums, How do you do it?

[Nateispro]

So i have Ez-drummer and like it quite a bit... but i don't have a midi controller or anything to program the drums with so i end up doing them note by note and get tired of it and give up after a few bars. How do you guys program your drums? i'm guessing midi controller... but i dont really have the money for one right now unless it's super cheap Is there an easy way to program some tracks that aren't just the prerecorded loops without a midi controller?

Also, Raf!!! How do you program the drums for your covers that you post? Do you find midi files for them or make the track yourself?

[fretless]

with ez just drag and drop a loop , Toontrack sells midi packs with hundreds and hundreds of loops not to mention it comes with many to begin with . Then double click that to edit it if it's not exactly what you need . Saves hours .

[Diocide]

with ez just drag and drop a loop , Toontrack sells midi packs with hundreds and hundreds of loops not to mention it comes with many to begin with . Then double click that to edit it if it's not exactly what you need . Saves hours .

THis. For rough sketches of songs, or demo type stuff, EZDrummer and DKFH are pretty damn fun...

[Nateispro]

yea i love DFH.... that pack has some great stuff in it... do you guys edit your loops with the mouse or is there a faster way of doing it... I have to drag each note around to get it where i'd like and it's so time consuming

[exafro]

I do it with the mouse in Fruity Loops. Then I export to midi or mp3 to import into Reaper. The Piano Roll in FL is much quicker for me than the the one in Reaper.

[Marc G]

i just find the loop that's closest to the beat I have in mind in EZ Drummer then tweak it to suit

[NinjaRaf]

I have a program called tabit that I export midi files from. Write the drums in tabit first. But they also have a site where people have tabbed songs out...so I pretty much always find the songsI wanna do covers of on there and just export the midi files.

[Markdude]

I used to do it in Guitar Pro...but I definitely don't recommend it. It was only quick for me because I had already been programming drums in it for fun...for YEARS before I knew much about the capabilities of drum sequencing. Plus you don't have much flexibility with velocities and drum mapping that way.

Then I switched to just using the mouse and drawing everything in. But I have a Korg PadKontrol now and it's sooooo much easier, faster, and more fun to program them that way. I'm not much of a drummer, so I record a pass with just kick and snare, then one with toms and/or fills, then a final one with hats and cymbals. Then I quantize to taste. If something about a hit is a little off (like the wrong velocity, or maybe a snare hit that needs to be changed to/from rimshot/center), it still only takes a few seconds to tweak it in the piano roll. It really makes creating drum parts fun, rather than a chore. It also sounds better for a lot of things, like hi-hats (where trying to humanize the velocities (manually or automatically) still ends up falling short and sounding a little off).

Anyway, I know you said you don't have the money for a MIDI controller unless it's super cheap, but I wanted to point out that you can get good ones for pretty cheap. The Korg NanoPad 2 is only 60 bucks new. It's really a night and day difference in the experience and will turn your motivation around. If you want your drum parts to be more than just basic four-on-the-floor grooves, I highly recommend getting a controller.

[KCTigerChief]

I guess I'm the odd ball, I open the piano roll editor, and do it by single mouse clicks for every drum/cymbal hit. Gives me the ability to write things how I hear them in my head, and I'm surprisingly fast at it anymore. Was slow going at first, but after a couple songs I sped up. I can do a 5-6 minute song's drum track in about 20 minutes or so.

[HottKarl]

I have a program called tabit that I export midi files from. Write the drums in tabit first. But they also have a site where people have tabbed songs out...so I pretty much always find the songsI wanna do covers of on there and just export the midi files.

This. Raf turned me onto Tabit and it's a pretty easy way to tab out your own thoughts or download other people's work.

[DNW]

I guess I'm the odd ball, I open the piano roll editor, and do it by single mouse clicks for every drum/cymbal hit. Gives me the ability to write things how I hear them in my head, and I'm surprisingly fast at it anymore. Was slow going at first, but after a couple songs I sped up. I can do a 5-6 minute song's drum track in about 20 minutes or so.

Same here, except for your use of the word "anymore".

I started sequencing in MIDI pretty much the same time I started playing guitar. So I've been doing it a good 15 years or so now, and had a few years of doing it before the first DFH came out. So I was already pretty handy at sequencing note by note.

If you keep at it, you'll just get better at it. Knowing the shortcut keys and such helps. Cutting and pasting helps speed things up too. If you've got a verse of 16 bars, just quickly whack together a couple of bars and then copy and paste it another 7 times. You probably don't want the exact same two bars repeating over and over, but the main chunk of the part is down and you can go back and work on the details after.

I've tried using a MIDI keyboard to put down drums, and for me it's just plain awkward and slow. By the time I've gone over the bit over and over getting down all the drums, and then gone back to edit/fix everything with the mouse afterwards... it'd have been quicker for me to just do it with the mouse in the first place.

[wrongnote85]

all of this seems very complex to me. that's why i just taught myself to play drums and record them myself, lol.

[JimmyPaeg]

I'll use a loop to write the song and then worry about diverse drums later.

I can play drums but I don't have enough mics to record em.

[Rob R]

I just take the MIDI out frommy Alesis SR18 drum machine. pretty simple way to write tunes quick!

[Holy-diver]

I want to get good at midi drums, but it's like trying to read hieroglyphs... it confuses me

[nakedzen]

I want to get good at midi drums, but it's like trying to read hieroglyphs... it confuses me

Guitar Pro -> Superior drummer is an easy way to start with. Don't bother with the piano roll editing in the beginning, try to just get a good base sound first. First and foremost you need to lear how to mix drums, you can't just slap the vsti on the midi track and call it day.

[Holy-diver]

I only have ezdrummer... it seems like there is a lot of different opinions on how to do it. I have been using gp but it takes forever amd doesn't exactly yield results that I am happy with.

[nakedzen]

I only have ezdrummer... it seems like there is a lot of different opinions on how to do it. I have been using gp but it takes forever amd doesn't exactly yield results that I am happy with.

The c key is your friend. I usually type out a few hits, then keep hitting c until the bar is full.

[Holy-diver]

I hate programming in gp. it isn't fun at all

[Nateispro]

I have a program called tabit that I export midi files from. Write the drums in tabit first. But they also have a site where people have tabbed songs out...so I pretty much always find the songsI wanna do covers of on there and just export the midi files.

Thank you SO much raf!!!! i've been wanting to post sound clips with cover songs and couldn't find any good? backing tracks! thanks man!!! thanks for your help guys!! it seems like the only way of doing it is getting good at the piano roll?

[NinjaRaf]

Happy to help. I love tabit because I suck at drums and it makes them easy to at least get some kind of beat down. I just get stuck using it because a friend of mine and I send shit back and forth to each other all the time. Hes in san diego, so we use tabit, then I convert the drums and record guitars and give him a final mp3 lol.

Honestly, though, Im SUPER interested in grabbing a midi controller. Eventually. I think thatll help even more.

One of the really great things about tabit is the online community. They rate all the tabs that get thrown up on the website, and a lot of them are really really good.

[Dickarms]

i really want to get into this. will be looking at some options soon. think ill be the pad-controller type.

[nwright]

Cubase has drum maps you can use instead of the midi piano roll and it makes it pretty easy to just click the hits into the drum map using a mouse. Ive always just used the drum maps and clicked the hits in one by one.

[Holy-diver]

I used to do it in Guitar Pro...but I definitely don't recommend it. It was only quick for me because I had already been programming drums in it for fun...for YEARS before I knew much about the capabilities of drum sequencing. Plus you don't have much flexibility with velocities and drum mapping that way.

Then I switched to just using the mouse and drawing everything in. But I have a Korg PadKontrol now and it's sooooo much easier, faster, and more fun to program them that way. I'm not much of a drummer, so I record a pass with just kick and snare, then one with toms and/or fills, then a final one with hats and cymbals. Then I quantize to taste. If something about a hit is a little off (like the wrong velocity, or maybe a snare hit that needs to be changed to/from rimshot/center), it still only takes a few seconds to tweak it in the piano roll. It really makes creating drum parts fun, rather than a chore. It also sounds better for a lot of things, like hi-hats (where trying to humanize the velocities (manually or automatically) still ends up falling short and sounding a little off).

Anyway, I know you said you don't have the money for a MIDI controller unless it's super cheap, but I wanted to point out that you can get good ones for pretty cheap. The Korg NanoPad 2 is only 60 bucks new. It's really a night and day difference in the experience and will turn your motivation around. If you want your drum parts to be more than just basic four-on-the-floor grooves, I highly recommend getting a controller.

I was looking at the midi pads, and I was wondering do you essentially record the drums by touching the pads? if so, how can you record fast drums?

[GuitarBilly]

I use preset MIDI loops and just modify them to my needs. I just find one that is close enough to what I need and switch a few things around in the piano roll then loop it as many times as I need.

I normally lay down 2 or 3 loops for the basic beats, then add fills once the song is completely recorded.